


To the Victor go the Spoils (The Battle of Little Hangleton Remix)

by celli



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Canon, Battle, First Kiss, M/M, Minor Character Death, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-20
Updated: 2011-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither Draco nor Severus had had much hope of remaining either alive or free for long when they'd parted ways seconds before All Hell Broke Loose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Victor go the Spoils (The Battle of Little Hangleton Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mayachain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/gifts).
  * Inspired by [To the Victor go the Spoils](https://archiveofourown.org/works/40991) by [mayachain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain). 



> Thanks to my awesome betas thestarsexist, gelishan, and trinaest! Summary and some dialogue from the original story. Alternate canon diverging from the end of the sixth book.

Draco knew he was going to die.

Not in the melodramatic Gryffindor Harry Potter sort of way, where he would do something foolhardy and brilliant and sacrifice his life for The Greater Good. No, Draco was going to die because his father would kill him the second he realized Draco had changed sides.

It all flashed through his mind in the split second it took to lift his wand: his father's face, full of disappointment and cold fury; the pain of a Cruciatus Curse; his mother's grief, Voldemort's rage, a stone in a graveyard like this somewhere that no one would visit, regardless of who won the war.

But Fenrir Greyback was coiling himself to spring, and Draco lifted his chin with his wand. _"Avada Kedavra!"_

Greyback collapsed inches from Neville Longbottom's feet. Draco ducked behind a statue of a weeping angel and nearly collided with his aunt.

"I knew you were soft," she keened. He fell back a step. "I knew you weren't truly fit to serve our Lord."

An explosion ripped through the trees behind them, followed by the whoops of the Weasley twins. Draco stumbled back, turned and ran. Beatrix howled behind him, but there were too many spells ripping across the clearing between them for her to reach him. He hoped.

A few minutes, or hours, or centuries later, he ran across Professor Snape, who was fighting off the combined efforts of half of Draco's Slytherin classmates. Draco found high ground, or what passed for it, and started stunning them. He'd never managed in all their duelling lessons to teach Goyle to look up, and he took advantage of it as long as he could.

You fool!" Snape snarled over his shoulder as Pansy collapsed into _Petrificus_. "I told you to stay out of sight until it was safer to reveal yourself!"

Absurdly, Draco wanted nothing more than to laugh. What part of a battle was supposed to be safe? "My apologies, Professor. You can deduct points from Slytherin if you like."

"I certainly will," Snape said. "At any rate, since you've shed any attempt at pretense, I believe the battle is heaviest over there." He pointed with his wand.

A roar of anger came from behind them; Draco stiffened and started to turn.

"Did you hear me, Mister Malfoy?" Snape reached over and shoved Draco away. "Go!"

Draco ran, but only to the nearest person he could trust as an ally. "Sir!" he shouted.

Remus Lupin looked at him oddly, wand at the ready. Draco realized suddenly that only the Death Eaters seemed to know he'd changed sides—he'd be lucky to not be _Avada_ ’d by the very people he was trying to help.

He'd run later. "Professor," he said, and Lupin's wand quivered slightly. "It's Snape—he needs—my father—" He pointed back to the small hill, where Snape had taken a defensive position and Lucius was stalking deliberately towards him.

"I see," Lupin said, and started towards the tableau. He put a hand out when Draco moved to follow, though. "This isn't your place, young man."

"I can do it," Draco said.

"I've no doubt of that," Lupin said, "but you're needed elsewhere." He pointed to yet another part of the cemetery—was there nowhere not full of shouts and blood?—where a group of students were facing down a larger group of Death Eaters. Neville Longbottom was at the head of the group, shouting encouragement.

"Yes, sir," Draco said. This time he grabbed Lupin's arm. "Sir—my father—" He took a deep breath. "His left side is his weakest."

Lupin gave him a half pat, half push, and Draco headed away.

Fortunately, the battle he joined was too loud and frantic for him to hear anything going on farther away.

Word gradually spread that Draco was one of the good guys, which would send him into paroxysms of laughter if he had time, but he had to save his breath for spells. He could hear the occasional shriek from Bellatrix, and briefly reconsidered how he would die. It didn't matter, though. He kept throwing spells and the occasional punch when needed. Each enemy he took out was one less to threaten—anyone else.

Somewhere near them, the sky was turning a violent purple-black, but Draco didn't have time to care. He could barely stand, but he kept throwing spell after spell, until the ground beneath him disappeared.

Draco landed hard on the wooden lid of a coffin, crashing through. He thought for one horrified moment that the bone he was looking at was his own arm snapping, but it was the skeleton of some forsaken Muggle he'd shattered in the impact. When he tried to push himself up, though, one arm did go out from under him, and he landed face-first onto the dirty wood.

Laughter echoed into the grave, and Draco fought to turn, to lift his wand, to at least look Bellatrix in the eye as she killed him.

She blocked out the light above him, laughed and raised her wand with a flourish—dear dramatic auntie—and Draco fought not to close his eyes. But a blast of light made him shrink back, and when he looked up, Bellatrix was gone, and Neville was looking down at him.

"Draco, are you—"

Light again, and Draco looked for the bolt attacking Neville, called out his name. The light grew to an intolerable brightness, taking on an almost physical presence, and Draco screamed for Neville again.

Suddenly it was gone, and everything was deathly silent. Then Draco heard a ragged cheer start far away and move closer.

"He's dead!" "Harry did it!" "We've won!"

Draco used the sides of the grave to drag himself to his feet, and Neville reached in to help him climb out. It occurred vaguely to Draco as he collapsed on the ground, Neville's hands still wrapped around his shoulders, that either of them could probably have done it with magic.

"Congratulations," he managed finally, as Neville's hands fell away from him.

Neville looked down and gave a half-shake of his head Draco couldn't even begin to interpret. "I've got to go help with—with the cleaning up, I suppose," he said. "Ah—don't go running off anywhere, all right?"

Draco just looked at him.

Neville grinned down at him, and he suddenly looked like a teenager again, not a soldier. "Right, sorry." He hurried away—limping, Draco noticed for the first time—and Draco just lay there, trying to sort confusion from relief from something he refused to admit was sorrow.

He might just live after all.

The light in the cemetery—the real light, not spell-borne—had dimmed into dusk by the time Draco gathered his wits about him and tried to move a little. "I'm not running away," he mumbled as he pulled himself over to a nearby tree he could climb up. "Crawling away, maybe."

He saw Neville approaching him, and behind him Lupin, who was looking down at Professor Snape. Snape was bloodied but angry-looking, so he'd be fine. Draco sagged a little with relief. When he focused again, Neville was inches from him, and Draco just looked at him.

Neville put a hand on Draco's cheek, and before Draco could flinch back, Neville's mouth was on his. He tasted a bit like the inside of a cauldron, but Draco imagined he tasted like blood and dirt himself. The kiss was gentle but not hesitant at all.

"Why?" Draco managed when Neville pulled back.

Neville's laugh had an edge of hysteria to it. "Because I've known for quite some time that if we ever won the war, and if we both were still alive, this is what I wanted to do. Because I just faced down your aunt, which means today of all days I really can't make the excuse that I don't dare to. Because I figured, I can't really get disappointed if you don't react the way I'd like you to, because, well, hey, we just won the war!"

He trailed to a stop, looking uncertain for the first time Draco could remember in this entire bloody, painful day. That hint of vulnerability, even more than the dizzy sense of potential Draco had been feeling ever since he’d crawled out of that grave, gave him the courage to lean forward and press his lips to Neville's cheek. "And if I do? Respond the way you'd like me to?"

In the ensuing embrace, Draco's arm was wrenched, his wand dropped from his hand to who knew where, and he could clearly hear a ribald cheer coming from somewhere near them, but he found he didn't care in the slightest.


End file.
